R.I.P. Christmas

Well great, thanks everyone you killed Christmas, the only thing I liked about the holiday season. That's right Thanksgiving sucks because no matter where I go for Thanksgiving or what I do, I get asked, "So what are you thankful for?" I hate answering that, I mean honestly, most people hate it when I say this, but I can't really pinpoint anything to be thankful for. For instance this year I am thankful for having great friends, family, and depending on the kindness of strangers. But when I say "thankful" it belies the fact that if I still had a job and didn't lose all of my money, I wouldn't need to be such a mooch. It's like getting kicked in the balls and then thanking them for showing me that my testicles are still there. Don't get me wrong, I am very grateful for my wonderful family and friends, even almost total strangers doing nice things for me. The point is that everything I am grateful for shines light onto a major flaw in my life, in this case that I'm a deadbeat who would starve to death without help from someone else. So be thankful that enough people like me that I don't fucking starve to death... well I guess, but it's not really appropriate when we go around the table and people are thankful for actual blessings. New Years fucking sucks too, here is 9 years of New Years parties combined into one: I go to a place with people I barely know, there are at least 2 single guys to every one girl; I say some idiotic bullshit to all the single girls and they end up hooking up with the Clay Aikeniest douchebag there and I'm stuck scraping jello-out of those little container things in a last ditch effort to get a buzz to be able to stomach everyone else there who is obnoxiously drunk or disgustingly making out on every couch in the room. Trust me, I have plllleennntttyy of reminders of how much it sucks to be a lonely, I don't even really need a holiday to remind me.

So that leaves Christmas, which I actually do like, but people are so determined to harsh my buzz on Christmas I almost don't like it anymore. Firstly it's getting so cool to be gung-ho politically correct to the point that we have holiday parties, holiday trees, holiday butt-sex, whatever. I'm not sure how much of that is hype and how much is people responding to hype. I remember a few years ago I saw the C.E.O. (who was Jewish) walking the halls and I said, "I'm looking forward to the Holiday party" and he corrected me, "Christmas party, it's a Christmas party." But then I've also seen non-christian people that just use it as an excuse to be a wet blanket when the company has a white elephant or whatever (but they sure as shit don't go back to work, oh no, they just mope around). If the lesson here is anything else, it's that Christmas is practically a secular holiday now-a-days, I mean shit, you put a nativity scene anywhere and suddenly you're Hitler. So since it's so generic and secular; why the fuck wouldn't you celebrate it?

I like Christmas, so if you got some Scrooge bullshit to say, keep it to yourself. And especially don't come at me with this:
I hate buying a bunch of gifts for people. Well I like buying gifts for people, it's a good way to show people you care. It's also nice to try to get into people's heads and try to figure out something they would like. When you try to understand your friends better, you get to know them better. Or if they drop hints, it's a great way to show you actually pay attention to what they say. Unfortunately, this year I don't even know who I'll be able to get gifts for; but in years past, I would get them for almost everyone I knew. It was just fun, and sometimes I could try to turn my friends on to something I think they would enjoy like a book or a game, etc. You can recommend something to someone all day, but if you actually buy it for them then they don't have any excuse not to try it out.
I'm sick of Christmas specials where they have some miracle, that's so unrealistic. Jeeze, why don't you just dress up like Criss Angel and cut yourself, you whiny little bitch. That's the whole problem with this society, we want some scientific explanation for everything. Nothing is magical, nothing is special, everything is explainable, nothing is sacred, we are all just less hairy apes, and when we die (good or bad) we look forward to an eternity of being in a box 6 feet underground getting pissed on by drunken frat kids. Am I the only one who thinks there has to be more to life than this? That there has to be some divine force at work, that there is some miracle waiting to happen somewhere sometime? Well you can keep bumping primate uglies all the live-long day for all I care, but I'm going to find a higher purpose someday.
I just get everyone gift cards and I'm done with it. Nothing says, "I don't like you enough to try to figure out one fucking thing out of the bazillions of things in the world to give you" like a gift card. If you really need help here is my advice:

1. If they are really interested in something, like golf, and you don't know much about it. Don't get them golfing equipment, if they are worth their salt at golf they know what they like more than you do. But you can use this information to formulate an idea of a non-equipment gift, like personalized golf tees, a book on golfing, etc.
2. Throwbacks are a good idea, if you had a good time getting high and renting Grandma's Boy maybe you could get them the video, or maybe a t-shirt with your favorite catch phrase from the movie.
3. Custom gifts (or gifts you make yourself). I doubt even Scrooge would be cold-blooded enough not to like a handmade coffee mug with signatures from the entire Crachet family on it. They have these little pottery kiosks at most malls, where you paint it and they fire it in their kiln; it's also a fun activity for the little ones if they need a distraction while one of you is shopping.
4. All else fails, if you know ANYTHING that they tried out and liked you can type it into Amazon and it will have "people who bought this also bought" beneath the product they liked.

That's just off the top of my head, I don't even know your friends.

I'm calling it a Holiday Tree, all these things are just pagan rituals anyway. True, but I have yet to find irrefutable proof that anyone before the Christians had Christmas Trees. Mistletoe, stockings, even a man delivering presents were all Druidic, Pagan, or Germanic practices that were adopted by Christianity. I've heard a lot of urban legend types of things like a Christmas Tree, but details were really sketchy and no details were offered. But nothing really predates St. Boniface who chopped down a tree and somehow converted some Germanic tribes to Christianity. It was also used as a way for early missionaries to explain the lineage of Jesse to David to Jesus, like how we have family trees today. So not everything was totally ripped off the pagans.

People are celebrating Christmas earlier and earlier each year; can't we at least wait until after Thanksgiving? I do totally agree with this, while I'd rather have two months of Christmas and no Thanksgiving, I realize that Thanksgiving does mean a lot to some people to get together with family. Just as I believe that all other celebrations are important: Hanukka, Kwanza, Chinese New Year, etc. I would rather everyone have the holiday they want instead of nobody having any holidays at all, like I fear is happening right now. And if somehow someone mistook me for being Jewish and wished me Happy Hanukka I would smile and nod, not even correcting them. It's the spirit of the season, there is an electricity in the air, but it's going away and all of the sudden this is some sort of civil rights case. It's very sad, I wish for the days when people would hold the door open for the woman with her arms full of presents, people saying "Merry Christmas" to strangers, a playful snowball fight breaking out on the 16 Street Mall.

But I still love Christmas no matter how many Scrooges, how many P.C. Douchbags, and how many whiny emo kids don't. I don't care if it's just me and Toby Keith the last two people celebrating Christmas, I still love it!

The Disney Princess Theorem

Now last time I tried to tackle religion and I got more of a bad response than I usually do, I'm not surprised, admittedly my strong suit isn't tackling serious topics. I was just a little pissed off that a few people on email, Twitter and Facebook destroy my inboxes and feeds with inflammatory anti-religion articles and statements. I just was wondering how they justify it being any different than Bible-thumping that they are so opposed to. I did terrible at it, I'm not sure who were most upset, atheists or Christians; I practically had more people saying how full of shit I was, than people actually reading it. The message was so convoluted that the valid points I made were overshadowed by the overall abrasive tone, so if anyone wants to re-read it after taking it with a grain of salt, please do. Anyway, I gave a few friends a preview of this one I'm doing now, and they were already upset before I wrote it; but I did all the research for it so, I'm doing it. I will note my friend's objections, they don't like relationship ones, people have already written about these topics, and I make it seem like people don't have minds of their own. Objections noted, but I've never written about it and like I said this one is pretty much written and I doubt less people will like this than the last one so, enjoy!

Once again this is just meant to be funny so take it with a grain of salt. Ever since high school I have always wondered why women enter obvious destructive relationships. There was that Pearl Jam song about not being able to find a better man, but I see it all the time, a perfectly good guy (usually even good looking dudes as far as I can tell, I'm really not a great judge) will try to court a girl but she throws it all away for the obvious bad catch. I guess I never really understood it before but then I was playing a video game called Kingdom Hearts II based on the Disney and Square-Enix characters (I'm a nerd, don't act surprised). But I soon realized, all of the Disney Princesses have very destructive romantic relationships. I don't fault Disney so much, and for sure there are enough people already doing that, you can even see a whole Disney section on snopes.com. It's just an observation of how we emulate stories that are meaningful to us and it forms our character and even certain preferences. I challenge you not to realize that one of these hits somewhat close to home with one of your friends.

Snow White: She seems pretty normal when compared to any other woman but the underlying mania that Snow White possesses is gullibility that rivals her beauty... that and living with 7 other dudes. To know the full tale of Snow White you must first realize that this is one of Grimm's Fairy Tales, the whole story elaborates the my point so away we go. Firstly she's not tricked once, she's tricked 3 times by the queen in beggar garb (depending on which translation you use, sometimes she is even in the same disguise). The third time she eats the poisoned apple and dies, and since she's a total hottie the dwarfs craft a glass coffin, so that they can look at her beauty, not surprisingly though they really just get sad looking at that dead body so they take it outside and take turns guarding it. After being dead for 3 days a king's son comes across the cabin and the beautifully undecomposed corpse of Snow White. Though unclear weather the prince was in the market for beautiful dead bodies or if it was just an impulse buy; he offers the dwarfs money for it and they refuse, but when he offers to be BFF x 7 with the dwarfs then they let him have it. One of the prince's servants drops the coffin dislodging a piece of the apple and Snow White isn't dead any more, the prince realized having a living chick is even better than a dead one and proposes, and Snow White was like, "whatevs" and they got married. If you think the Grimm story is weird, guess what happens to the Queen? No joke, she gets iron shoes and is forced to dance in them until she falls down dead. The Queen's DDR score was never beaten, and they all lived happily ever after!
The moral: If you're hot enough, you don't have to have common sense, hell you can even be dead and motherfuckers will still be buyin' you shit. Snow White was the first literal trophy wife, she was in a glass case for God's sake.

Cinderella: This is also a Grimm tale but I don't really need to get into it for this point. Cinderella's wicked step mother and sisters force her into a life of servitude as a scullery maid. Prince Charming sends out a nationwide booty call, Cinderella can't go and all of the sudden a fairy godmother shows up and turns pumpkins to chariots... all kinds of nutty shit. And then she's good to go, Prince Charming dances with her, knows instinctively she's the one; midnight strikes she has to run away because her chariot will turn back into a pumpkin and loses her shoe. The prince searches the countryside looking for the girl missing the shoe, finds it's Cinderella and they live happily ever after. What is so bad about that?
The moral: You don't need to stick up for yourself or sever abusive family ties; nah, just keep-on-keepin-on and then one day you'll get a free pumpkin chariot and some dude with a foot fetish will come around and "take you away from all this," all you have to do is hang in there and bury those tears deeeeeep down inside. A couple of mouse friends you can talk to won't hurt either.

Aurora: She's Sleeping Beauty if you are wondering, Malefecent gets dissed and not invited to Aurora's christening and curses her that she will touch a spindle and die when she's 16 (which one of the fairies changes to her sleeping). Why you wouldn't invite someone who does shit like that when they get snubbed, is beyond me. Maybe she's one of those people who you invite to everything and they never show up, but then the get pissed off when you don't invite them somewhere. Anyway, she meets a stranger in the woods, who turns out to be Prince Phillip. He lays the mac down and gets a date (officially this is the only thing close to a healthy relationship and the only prince with a name so far). Her aunts (the fairies) tell her she can't go on the date, she gets super bummed and asks to be left alone. She touches a spindle falls asleep and Prince Philip saves the day and kisses a girl that's sleeping. And she wakes up and they all live happily ever after.
The moral: Somebody tells you some shit you don't want to hear... just hurt yourself... make yourself bleed.... just a little bit... they will be sorry. A bonus moral, you know that one thing you aren't supposed to do... WELL JUST FUCKING DO IT, YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE! What could possibly kick more ass than touching a needle? That kind of reminds me of this story there was one tree in the world where you weren't supposed to eat the fruit of... never mind.

Ariel: A mermaid who has everything she could ever ask for saves a drowning prince and starts hording statues of him and other doodads from the human world. Not content to live in her aquatic paradise she decides to trade her beautiful voice for legs to walk on land. Yet another prince falls superficially in love with a girl he barely knows. This is a running theme, I counted the number of words spoken by the princesses to the princes before they knew she was the one: Snow White-0 Cinderella-19 Aurora-30 Ariel-0. Not too surprising since 1/2 of the princes prefer unconsciousness in their women. Ariel somehow manages not to walk away without a smooch from prince Eric despite having a pulse. That being the condition of her contract with Ursula she is dragged down and Ariel's father Triton is forced to trade himself for her. Prince Eric nuts up and kills Ursula and they all live happily ever after.
The moral: If you see a guy you like, the best way to impress him is to make a little shrine to him in your grotto. Make sure to obsess about him all the time, to the point that forget that you live in a place where crabs play drums and fish play saxophones. Then do whatever irresponsible, reckless thing you need to do to make him yours.

Belle: With Belle we finally get to the scary stuff. I didn't really realize exactly how strange of a situation she was in until I was playing Kindgom Hearts II. There is a lot of dialogue to weed through so I'll just put the key points. So in the game you arrive in the Beast's Castle and he is super pissed off, Belle is scared shitless in the other side of the castle and his servants (the clock, teapot, candle guy, etc.) are locked in a room pissing themselves. It's hardly even a stretch to say this looks like a domestic disturbance.

Donald: Where's the Beast?
Belle: Oh, he must be in the west wing. We don't talk like we used to.
Sora: Did something happen?
Belle: Yes. Isn't that why you're here?

Interviewing both parties separately...

Beast: Xaldin... that's his name. He came from the darkness... He...used my anger to control me. He took all my sorrow, my sadness, my pain---and turned it all into rage. There was nothing I could do... I could no longer see the truth.
Goofy: Well, I'll be. That must be why you threw all of your friends down there into the dungeon. You wanted to make sure that you didn't hurt 'em, right?
Beast: Was that it? Was it to protect them?
Goofy: Sure. We know you're good inside.

It's a good idea to get your story straight before the cops get there...

Beast: I've mistreated her... I've mistreated her and been so selfish.
Sora: She didn't say anything about that.
Beast: She'd never tell anyone of my cruelty... She's too good.

Is it that... or does she know what will happen to her if she does?

Beast: Where is Belle?
Wardrobe: Why, she left in a hurry. Something about going after this...man in black.
Beast: WHAT!? Why doesn't she do as she's told?

Not a jealous man, but females lie...

Beast: Belle... I-I'm sorry---I...wasn't myself. I hope I haven't done anything to hurt you. Forgive me.
Belle: I know you weren't yourself. You don't have to apologize. But I had hoped...that you might have changed a little bit.

Uh yeah... I WISH I was taking this one out of context.

Belle: Do you have to go?
Sora: Yeah.
Goofy: Now, no more arguin', okay?

Please don't go, we can play Scrabble... or watch a movie... I'll make popcorn... please don't leave me alone.

The moral: Instead of that guy that everyone in the town (even your father) loves; you should really pick the selfish verbally and physically abusive asshole who ruined the lives of everyone he knows with a single dickheaded maneuver and even locked your father in a dungeon one time. It's pretty much a no-brainer.

Jasmine: There is no background story for this needed.
The moral: If you're a suburban princess and daddy doesn't show you enough attention, find a hardened convicted criminal to go out with. At first he may not be able to provide for you, and he may not exactly feel the need to pull himself up by his boot straps. But hey he just needs to hustle a little bit, jack some shit here and there, and perfect his rhymes a little bit and KAZZAM! Dr. Dre will come out of a magic lamp and give him a record contract. Street Rat Life!

Pocahontas: A very regal, independent, environmentally conscious, Native American woman with almost no flaws, except oh yeah she starts seeing another guy when she's engaged.
The moral: Cheating is okay, as long as they are in different river-bend codes.

Mulan: Fa Mulan goes in place of her father to war because he is much too crippled to fight. In an attempt to bring honor to her family she dresses as a man in order to fight in the army against the Huns.
The moral: Two words... penis envy. Just kidding, no the actual moral is that if you don't fit in at first, you should be ashamed. You need to dress, look and act like everyone else in order to make others accept you.

Anti-Religious Nutjobs

I used to not like when people pushed their religion on me, but now I get people trying to push atheism on me, and they are waaaaaayyy worse than any religious person I know. I know a lot of people are going to be pissed off at me for this; but I'm really all out of fucks to give. Now I am not super religious but I do believe in God, and have a spiritual side; I'm pretty much a lukewarm Catholic. But any reference I make to God anywhere at any time is met by, "Oh man, dude you believe in God? What an idiot." That may be; I may actually be proof that God doesn't exist, that Karma doesn't exist, that luck doesn't exist. But I have even less if you take away the hope from me; the hope that one day some of the good Karma will balance itself out and I will get what I deserve, that someday the last will be first and the first will be last, that someday proper planning will met an opportunity. I'm sorry if the idea of living a completely fruitless bullshit life only to die penniless and alone and become worm food isn't exactly an idea that makes me want to stand up and cheer.

Don't get me wrong, most people I know who are atheist don't need to prove shit to anyone, much like I don't have to prove my faith to any of you. I'm talking about the ones who go around trying to debunk other people's faiths; what the hell do you even get out of that? At least when someone preaches to me about their faith, their heart is in the right place and they want to save me or give me something to believe in. But it seems to me like atheists are just trying to prove that they are smarter than everyone, or get a rise out of people. Well, for that reason alone I can't be an atheist, you see I really don't give a shit how smart people think I am, my intelligence (or lack thereof) speaks for itself; and I really take no joy in raining on someone's parade, especially when it's obvious that their faith means a lot to them. But lately atheists are marching under a banner of, "Religion is bad, all wars would be over if we had no religion." Bullshit, mankind has been able to find reasons to hate each other since the dawn of recorded time. But even if that were true, that rhetoric you drone on about ain't neeeevvveerrrr going to reach the people who actually do kill people based on their religion. The only people who hear the shit you say are pleasant suburban families who say grace at the table and conduct funerals when the daughter's goldfish dies. You aren't exactly going to get a Nobel peace prize for tearing that down. So why don't you send that shit to people in Tel-Aviv or Al Queda people who really do actually kill people based on their faith every day?

Because, it is way easier to pick on church going families that haven't done anything wrong to anybody. These people, who fill up my Facebook wall with the latest, "ACLU victory over troops in Iraq trying to pray on government time" usually like to "debate" with people about their religion. These people just pick on easy targets. From an outsider perspective anyone who takes the side of science in a debate has a HUGE advantage. The burden of science is proof; the burden of religion is faith. In a debate you try to prove your point so the goal of the debate and science are the same; the goal of debates and religion are not. It's like using science to prove how much you trust someone. Not only this, but whoever initiates these impromptu debates have a supreme advantage; essentially you are just blindsiding someone who doesn't have notes or a prepared speech in front of them (and probably wasn't expecting to be debated). If they don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the bible, they will lose, because you already know what your argument is but they don't. This is why I think that Bill Maher barely winning a debate with an amusement park Jesus is so comical (in Religulous). He's used to doing debates with a panel of three or four people and the panel is always loaded to favor his own opinion; so debating 3 or 4-to-1 is such a chicken-shit douchebag move that you can't take him seriously. The other patron saint of atheism is the late George Carlin, as a one-time aspiring comedian I admire anyone who can be successful in such a difficult career, but I really don't think his comedy is amazing. The only bit I have ever laughed at was The Usage of Fuck, because Carlin is all about the shock value and there is really very little substance in his comedy. I saw a T-Shirt on tshirthell.com that said, "Rape is no laughing matter... unless of course you're raping a clown," that is basically Carlin's brand of humor, it's not a well crafted joke; it's 100% shock value that just catches you off guard. It's sort of like the first season of South Park; it was just shock value, but then in recent episodes they use great writing and I enjoy it even more than I did when I first saw it. I may believe in an invisible man in the sky; but I'm at least smart enough to realize that just because someone is snarky, cynical and irreverent doesn't necessarily mean they know what the fuck they are talking about.

One last point and it's a thing I'm so sick of; leave the 10 Commandments alone. It's not a fantastic iron-clad justice system, but the only set of laws I've heard pre-dating the 10 Commandments are Hammurabi's Code. Here is one of the laws that his code has, "If anyone brings an accusation against a man, and the accused goes to the river and leaps into the river, if he sinks in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river proves that the accused is not guilty, and he escapes unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser." So for anyone that accuses the 10 Commandments of being "common sense laws" Hammurabi's Code goes to prove that in those days this would be pretty groundbreaking. The only reason why they seem like they are common sense laws, is that western culture has used these as the framework for societal norms since before Constantine. And for those that say it's for the purpose of controlling people; it sounds so sinister when you say it that way. Moses wandered around the desert with the Hebrew people for 40 YEARS; you can't tell me that you can just tell everyone to be on the honor system. I've seen people lose their minds when Blizzard shuts their servers down for a 2 hour system maintenance. Besides these laws are purely of a Kantian "what's good for the goose is good for the gander" nature. It would be like me saying, "Thou shalt not piss on the toilet seat." If I said that God told me to put that, yes a little deceitful, but am I thinking to myself, "Yes, soon every quaking knee will bend, today toilet seats, tomorrow THE WORLD"? No way, I just hate it when people do that and I don't do it, but who can really even argue that that isn't a rule that everyone should abide by anyway. But ultimately, if you think I believe there was a guy trapped in a whale, or that there were only two people at the beginning of mankind, you're crazy. George Carlin said, "I wouldn't mind those folks in Alabama putting (the 10 Commandments) up on the courthouse wall; as long as they included one additional commandment, 'thou shall keep thy religion to thyself,'" I feel the exact same way about quasi-religions like atheism. I think that people who are way overboard sceptics are just as crazy as people who are overboard fanatics.

Obscure Horror Movies for the Aspiring Director

So I'm pretty fanatical about horror movies, and when October hits, it's horror movies and nothing but! I came across some film students who wanted to pick my brain about some horror movies to see to give some ideas. I'm awarding cool points to anyone who has seen any of these movies, you can redeem them for nothing... unless you're a chick and then I will totally make out with you, or not; whatever, it's your choice at that point.

Asian Diamonds in the Rough

Oldboy: In Saw II they mentioned a movie where a guy was locked up for 15 years in the same room, I'm pretty sure he was talking about this movie. An average guy gets drunk and wakes up inside a room where he has to stay for 15 years. Once he is released he searches for his captor and soon realizes the 15 years of imprisonment wasn't the worst part of his situation.

Uzumaki: Based on a manga (Japanese comic book) written by a dentist named Junji Ito. A small town in Japan is in the grips of madness stemming from things that are spiral shaped. This is truly one of the most unsettling movies I've ever seen, but it hardly even does the manga justice. It's also an easy read compared to many manga comic books, which read right to left, this one goes left to right so it's pretty much like any other comic book. I think the only thing creepier than a comic book written by a dentist is one made by clowns... *shutter*

Twilight Zone

There are a lot of Twilight Zones that are great my 4 favorite episodes are actually available on two DVD's Volume 2 and Volume 29.

Time Enough at Last: This was parodied on Family Guy, a man who's only dream is to be able to read all day are constantly thwarted by his wife and boss who are fed up with him shirking his responsibilities to read. This forces him to sneak into the vault of the bank he works for to read on his lunch break, during which nuclear holocaust occurs. Being the last man on earth he finally has time to read all of his books.

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: A Twilight Zone classic, this features William Shatner before he was on Star Trek. It was remade for the Twilight Zone Movie as well as being parodied on one of The Simpson's Tree House of Horror segments. It features a man who had such an intense nervous breakdown on an airplane that it had to make a forced landing. After a long psychiatric treatment he is deemed sane enough to fly home. I would like to not spoil it, but there is a gremlin on the wing and that's the gist of it; the rest is just about Shatner craziness.

A Nice Place to Visit: A tough thug dies and is approached by an angelic person who can give him everything he ever wants; all he has to do is wish for it. He realizes that the thrill is gone when he can wish for anything he wants. He also realizes that even if he were to wish things to be by chance at any time he could just wish for things to be better again. It is a simple idea but it gets my psychological and existential gears turning. This was briefly parodied on Futurama.

A Penny for your Thoughts: I have a sneaking suspicion that Jim Carrey's Stanley Ipkiss character from The Mask is loosely based on this; but according to Carrey it was based on his father. Anyway, a guy flips a coin into a tray when purchasing a news paper and it lands on the coin's edge, suddenly can read people's minds. One of the few sort of funny Twilight Zones, starring Dick York (one of the Darrens from Bewitched).

American Movies

Sleepaway Camp: This was kind of eclipsed by more popular slasher serieses like Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th; the movie isn't the greatest, but it has a very strange twist and the very last scene actually gave me a new image for my nightmares.

European

Thriller a Cruel Picture: One of my favorite things about this movie is that the Swedish director Bo A. Vibenius made a film that had been considered a failure, so he tried to make a more commercial movie and this is what he came up with. It's basically a porno with a revenge sub-plot; oh yeah and there is a real corpse that gets it's eye cut out (according to popular legend). Tarantino used this as part of his inspiration for Kill Bill specifically a nod to the girl with an eye patch that matches her clothes... It's worth seeing if you can find it; I wouldn't watch it with your girlfriend though.

Donkey Punch: This is the first movie that I thought was weird because it was exactly what the title said it would be. I remember the chick at the Blockbuster glared at me, "Is this movie about..." "Yes... yes it is; I don't know what I was expecting" I said.

Takashi Miike

Now in order to rate the films of director Takashi Miike, I have to start by saying that these are all WAY worse than anything you will see in the United States. By worse I don't just mean violent; I'm talking disturbing, depraved, repulsive; these films are considered war crimes in some places. So be warned if you decide to watch them. I've rated them in my own rating system because these would all be NC-17 and then some if they were in the US.

Tame for Miike's Films but still way Worse than Anything You've Ever Seen

Full Metal Yakuza: This is one of Miike's earlier films, it's like the japanese version of Robocop. It's not one of the best ones by Miike, but probably one of the few you could show in a U.S. theater.

Audition: A man decides to hold an audition for the perfect wife alongside a friend who is casting for a movie, in order to not seem so melancholy in front of his teenage son. If you were curious what Misery would have been like with a hot Asian woman... and instead of having an obsession with authors she has more of an obsession with collecting people's body parts, then rent this. The worst part of this movie is that it seems totally normal for the first 3/4 of the movie... but then you are on a roller-coaster ride that you have absolutely no control over. You can find this movie at the top of nearly every website's "Most Disturbing Films" list.

You won't be able to Finish these Movies

Ichi the Killer: A Yakuza film (Japanese mafia movies that are filled with over the top violence and bizarre plots) in which a feared Yakuza muscle named Kakihara (who would make an awesome Halloween costume, but would require tons of make-up) loses his boss Anjo and scours the slums of Tokyo for any sign of him. Kakihara is a sadist and masochist, but saying he's some S&M fetish guy would reaaaalllllyyy be missing the mark. No whips, leather, and nipple clamps for this guy; his interests are more along the line of cutting his own tongue out and sticking giant needles deep in his ear. And as far as sadism, he makes Pinhead from Hellraiser look like Rip Taylor. The police send out the only person capable of killing Kakihara; Ichi, a gross perversion of a superhero who is brainwashed to the point of total warped madness, this coupled with many crippling emotional problems he makes me look like Rip Taylor. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Happiness of the Katakuris: If you've ever seen that South Park where they get the porno tape instead of The Lord of the Rings and they tell Token to watch it and he seems all pale and distant and says he doesn't want to play anymore. This is exactly what happened after seeing this movie as an adult.

You will not be able to Unsee the things you See in this Movie

Visitor Q: A typical family next door... if the mother and daughter are both prostitutes and the dad... Okay just look at the keywords for this movie, it's basically EVERYTHING you can't show in a movie in the United States:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290329/keywords

Bargaining with God is a very Bad Idea

Life just took such a huge shit on me, that it got post-partum depression when it was done. Now I know what most people will say when I say this, "There are people who have it way worse than you." Well FUCK, looks like I'm not going to get the worst life ever award, darn. I don't know why these "Positive Nancys" do that shit; if California got hit by a big earthquake I'm not going to say, "Yeah that sucks dude, but I think Hurricane Katrina was way worse." To me it's not a competition, so if you feel like saying some bullshit like that, feel free to just shove it up your ass instead, thanks! I remember one time when I was going into work and they had a large mirror with two very thin mirrors on the sides (creating like a U shape) and I was washing my hands and I went to grab a paper towel and caught something strange in the mirror. I was like, "Damn is my hair getting sun-bleached in the middle of the winter?" Staring for a few minutes I realized I was looking at the top of my head. Nothing to panic about, it was a windy day and it probably just messed up my hair; I did the hand comb thing but it didn't fix it, I even tried to wet it down, nothing. Then I approached another coworker, "This is going to sound crazy right... but I am going bald?" She said, "Yeah you have been since you started here" (About 3 months at the time). I was only 23 and on top of that I'm not what many would consider attractive, I have many glaring obvious physical and emotional defects, and even a sub-standard personality; as stupid as it sounds I felt like my life was over. I was unapproachable that day, I was doing the, "Uh oh, that wasn't a fart, need to walk with my back to the wall all day" thing, as if there was someone on earth who didn't know that I was going bald. I'm like barely 5' 7" (another bullshit 'life feature') and so unless you were like 4' and never came up behind me when I was sitting down, it was pretty obvious. Somebody finally tried to cheer me up, but he said to me, "You know it could be worse, I know a 12 year old girl that has cancer, needs to wear a wig..." I'm like, "Great so I'm bald, vain, shallow, and self-centered; I feel much better." I called in sick the next day, I just sat in front of the TV for the whole day like I was Mr. Lebowski from the Big Lebowski, "I've accomplished so much without the use of any sort of sex appeal; but now my hair is missing and I don't know what to do."

If you aren't already in tears by now; wait until you hear this part... Now normally I would gloss over this detail because it was so uber-pathetic, sad, and a little gay; but hey, it's not like I have any dignity left anyway. So I made a promise to God that if I could find my own Ms. Right and we could be happy together, I'd give up all my worldly possessions. Don't worry though, I'm not that whiny little bitch that would make a promise like that now, plus I realize that this is the third step of the Kubler-Ross grief process called "bargaining." I'm at the point in my life that I realize that there is a very good chance that I will be lonely for the rest of my life, and failing that, I would maybe meet someone when I'm 40 simply because they realize that they can't find anyone else. They'll cheat on me and treat me like garbage, but I won't really love them anyway. That's just the hand I got dealt, nothing I can do about it now but deal with it. But after I gained acceptance (5th and final step) I realized, I'm losing all my fucking shit, one way or the other. But I don't know if I'm somehow cosmically I'm being forced to make good on my promise to God; or if God just wanted to show me that he's God and he can take away all my things and doesn't have to give me shit... because he's God. One thing is for sure, it doesn't seem like any woman in particular is showing any sort of interest in me. But we'll have to see, I only have a few possessions left so I should know pretty soon.

I ended up losing my last unreasonably decadent possession on Halloween. I had an iPhone and I'll admit, I don't receive nearly enough phone calls to claim I need that, but it did many of the functions I needed, and was one of the last things I bought with my savings since my untimely termination. I was at my cousin's house and someone was like, "Dude, did you forget your phone?" and he hands me one that wasn't mine. I found the owner and then I realized, I don't have mine. So a few hours after everyone got there, I probably ruined everyone's time by obsessively looking for my phone the whole time. Everyone was really helpful and understanding, but we never did find it. I stayed the night at my cousin's house, he let me have the one couch (everyone else was on the floor), which was very nice of him. And in the morning we called it walking through the house but didn't hear anything. I'm thinking maybe someone thought it was theirs and took it, I don't think anyone would have stolen it, as many of them are people that are at a lot of my cousin's parties; and most of the ones I didn't know were helping me look for the phone. I guess I never appreciated how much I used it for, I had like 4 alarms going every day, so now as I look at the alarm clocks strewn around my room, I almost want to cry.

Maybe I was on the wrong track with the idea of I'm just paying for something good in my future; this might be a lesson of not having fun. Monday I was at a restaurant by me with my family for trivia, and this guy dumps my cousin's beer onto my lap (along with a bunch of glass). I wasn't hurt and the restaurant payed for 2 beers for me and bummed me a cigarette, so it wasn't exactly a harrowing experience and the restaurant definitely did me right, but having wet pants for 3 hours was kind of a bummer. If you look at the previous blog you will see that I had class on Wednesday, but it was canceled because of the snow, but I have to make it up this Saturday. Thursdays are like my Saturdays lately, I go visit a few friends downtown and then we play trivia with family and friends; unfortunately it was still a little snowy for my car to do anything I didn't have to. So that sucks that I have to make up the class I missed but I can't make up the fun things I was supposed to do. And then I was looking forward to Halloween so bad, but when I lost my phone that was all I could think about, so I barely even got drunk. Ugh, I don't even know if I want to do anything fun ever again, I don't think I can fit another fucking anal bead of bad luck in my ass.

UPDATE: Since publishing this I found out that my cousin and a girl I barely know are still looking for my phone. I have very good friends and family; if nothing else I really hope they know that! I was so obsessed and worried about my phone I didn't even stay to clean, because I needed to go report my phone lost. I'm still a little bummed about my phone, in fact I even tried rocking out to some Boston which usually snaps me right out of it, but not this time. But, I really didn't deserve to be treated so nice by friends and strangers, because of how selfish I was, hogging the couch, bugging everyone to find my phone, not staying to clean, and even ruing my own time with my mania. Well it's totally in God's hands now.